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>Making Your Scripts Work With Cacti</A
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><P
>				The simplest way to extend Cacti's data gathering functionality is through external scripts. Cacti comes
				with a number of scripts out of the box which are located in the <TT
CLASS="FILENAME"
>scripts/</TT
> directory.
				These scripts are used by the data input methods that are present in a new installation of Cacti.
			</P
><P
>				To have Cacti call an external script to gather data you must create a new data input method, making sure
				to specify <SPAN
CLASS="GUILABEL"
>Script/Command</SPAN
> for the <SPAN
CLASS="GUILABEL"
>Input Type</SPAN
> field. See the
				previous section, <A
HREF="data_input_methods.html"
TARGET="_top"
>Creating a Data Input Method</A
> for more
				information about how to create a data input method. To gather data using your data input method, Cacti
				simply executes the shell command specified in the <SPAN
CLASS="GUILABEL"
>Input String</SPAN
> field. Because of
				this, you can have Cacti run any shell command or call any script which can be written in almost any
				language.
			</P
><P
>				What Cacti is concerned with is the output of the script. When you define your data input method, you are
				required to define one or more output fields. The number of output fields that you define here is important
				to your script's output. For a data input method with only one output field, your script should output its
				value in the following format:
			</P
><PRE
CLASS="SCREEN"
><KBD
CLASS="USERINPUT"
>&lt;value_1&gt;</KBD
></PRE
><P
>				So if I wrote a script that outputs the number of running processes, its output might look like the
				following:
			</P
><DIV
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><A
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></A
><P
><B
>Example 11-1. Example script output using 1 field</B
></P
><P
>					<KBD
CLASS="USERINPUT"
>67</KBD
>
				</P
></DIV
><P
>				Data input methods with more than one output field are handled a bit differently when writing scripts.
				Scripts that output more than one value should be formatted like the following:
			</P
><PRE
CLASS="SCREEN"
><KBD
CLASS="USERINPUT"
>&lt;fieldname_1&gt;:&lt;value_1&gt; &lt;fieldname_2&gt;:&lt;value_2&gt; ... &lt;fieldname_n&gt;:&lt;value_n&gt;</KBD
></PRE
><P
>				Lets say that I write a script that outputs the 1, 5, and 10 minute load average of a Unix machine. In Cacti,
				I name the output fields '1min', '5min', and '10min', respectively. Based on these two things, the output of
				the script should look like the following:
			</P
><DIV
CLASS="EXAMPLE"
><A
NAME="AEN1319"
></A
><P
><B
>Example 11-2. Example script output using 3 fields</B
></P
><P
>					<KBD
CLASS="USERINPUT"
>1min:0.40 5min:0.32 10min:0.01</KBD
>
				</P
></DIV
><P
>				One last thing to keep in mind when writing scripts for Cacti is that they will be executed as the user the
				data gatherer runs as. Sometimes a script may work correctly when executed as root, but fails due to permissions
				problems when executed as a less privileged user.
			</P
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